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DICKENS 



life in chambers, are all his own ; while of in- 

 dividual characters the list of those which are 

 known to be portraits more or less true to nature 

 might be indefinitely extended. And yet, while he 

 was always drawing on these early recollectiqns, 

 while they constantly f&rnished him with scenes 

 and characters, he could not bear to speak of them, 

 and no one except his friend and biographer, 

 Forster, ever knew that he was, himself, with all 

 the shabby, mean surroundings in early life, exactly 

 such as David Copperfield. 



The rest of Dickens's life has the interest which 

 belongs to success after success. It was a long 

 triumphal march. He had no failures ; lie suffered 

 no defeats. There were times when his hand was 

 not at its best, but never a time when his hand 

 lost its power. This indeed seems the crowning 

 happiness of a successful and singularly happy life, 

 that when he was cut oft' he died June 6, 1870 

 after fifty-eight years of continuous work, his 

 brain was still as vigorous, his eye as keen, his 

 hand as sure as in the first fresh running of 

 his youth. It was indeed more than literary 

 success which he achieved ; he conquered the 

 whole English-speaking world. This world, which 

 now numbers nigh upon a hundred millions, loves 

 him ; all who can read his books love him, and 

 shall continue to love him. This love cheered 

 him in his life, and will keep his memory green. 

 Of the solid wealth which he acquired, the honour 

 he enjoyed, the friends who gathered round him, 

 and the brave and resolute front which he always 

 showed, there is no space here to speak. 



The following is the list of Dickens's works 

 in their order of appearance, omitting certain farces 

 and pamphlets which belong to a more extended 

 notice: Sketches by Boz (1836), The Posthumous 

 Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), Oliver Tivist 

 (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), The Old Curiosity 

 Shop ( 1840-41 ), Barnaby Riidge ( 1841 ), American 

 Notes (1842), Martin' Chuzzlewit (1843), The 

 Christmas Tales viz. The Christmas Carol, The 

 Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of 

 Life, The Haunted Man, and The Ghost's Bargain 

 (1843, 1846,. and 1848) ; Pictures from Italy (1845), 

 Dombey and Son (1846-48), David Copper field 

 (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), The Child's 

 History of England (1854), Hard Times (1854), 

 Little Dorrit ( 1855-57), A Tale of Two Cities ( 1859), 

 The Uncommercial Traveller ( 1861 ), the Christmas 

 numbers in Household Words and All the Year 

 Round, Great Expectations ( 1860-61 ), Our Mutual 

 Friend (1864-65), The Mystery of Edwin Drood 

 (unfinished). This long roll by no means represents 

 the whole work of this most active of mankind. 

 Public readings both in this country and in America, 

 private theatricals, speeches, letters innumerable, 

 journeys many, pamphlets, plays, the conduct of a 

 popular magazine first called . Household Words 

 and then All the Year Round and an ever-present 

 readiness to enjoy the society of his friends, fill up 

 the space when he was not actually writing. That 

 he could do so much was mainly due to his orderly 

 and methodical habits, to his clearness of mind, 

 and to a capacity for business as wonderful as his 

 genius for fiction. He knew no rest from the 

 day when he first attacked shorthand to the day 

 when he fell from his chair in the fit from which 

 he never recovered. He was incomparably the 

 most active man, the hardest-working man of his 

 age. In the history of letters there are many 

 who have produced more work in bulk ; there 

 is not one who led a life so varied, so full, so 

 constantly busy, so active and so rich. 



It is as yet too early to speak with certainty as 

 to the lasting popularity of his work as a whole. 

 Very much of it owed its general success to the 

 faithful delineation of manners already passed away. 



He was the prophet of the middle class, and the 

 manners of that great section of the community 

 have greatly changed since the days when Charles 

 Dickens lived among them and observed them. 

 With the decay of these manners some part of 

 present popularity must certainly pass out of his 

 work : already a generation has appeared to whom 

 a great deal of Dickens's work proves of no interest, 

 because it portrays manners with which they are 

 not familiar. They do not laugh with those who 

 laughed fifty, forty, twenty years ago, because the 

 people depicted have vanished. But when the 

 second quarter of this century shall belong so truly 

 to the past, that not one survives who can remember 

 it, then these books will become a precious store- 

 house for the study and the recovery of part, and 

 that a large part, of its life and manners. 



Again, it is the essential quality of genius to 

 create the type. In this Dickens has been more 

 successful than any other novelist, ancient or 

 modern. With him every leading character stands 

 for his class. Squeers is the representative of the 

 schoolmaster, then too common, ignorant, brutal, 

 and grasping ; Winkle is the Cockney sportsman ; 

 it is impossible to think of red tape without nam- 

 ing Mr Tite Barnacle ; and so on through all the 

 books. If he sometimes too plainlv labels his 

 characters with their qualities and defects, it is 

 a fault caused by his own clearness of conception 

 and of execution. It is another note of genius to 

 suffer every character to work out its own fate 

 without weakness or pity, and though Dickens 

 deals seldom with the greater tragedies of the 

 world in his domestic dramas, necessity pursues his 

 characters as grimly and certainly as in real life. 

 The villain Quilp and his tool make us forget, in 

 the amusement which they cause, their own base- 

 ness. But their creator is not deceived. He makes 

 them bring their own ruin upon their heads. To be 

 true, not only to the outward presentment and 

 speech and thought of a character, but also to the 

 laws which surround him, and to the consequences 

 of his actions, is a rare thing indeed with those who 

 practise the art of fiction. Further, in this art there 

 are permissible certain exaggerations, as upon the 

 stage. There is exaggeration of feature, exaggera- 

 tion of talk, exaggeration of action. There are 

 degrees of exaggeration, by which one passes through 

 tragedy, comedy, farce, and burlesque ; but in all 

 there must be exaggeration. Dickens was master 

 of exaggeration if he sometimes carried it too far, 

 he produced farce, but never burlesque. As for 

 selection, which is perhaps the most important 

 point after exaggeration, it came to him by instinct; 

 lie knew from the very outset how to select. It is 

 by selection that the novelist maintains the interest 

 of his story and develops his characters. There are 

 countless things that are said and done in the pro- 

 gress of the history which have little interest and 

 small bearing on the things which have to be told ; 

 and it is the first mark of the bad novelist that he 

 does not know how to suppress irrelevant scenes. 

 In the constructive branch of his art Dickens con- 

 tinually advanced. His earlier stories seem, like 

 the Pickwick Papers, to be made up of scenes. 

 Nicholas Nickleby is a long series of scenes bril- 

 liantly drawn, in which new characters are always 

 appearing and playing their disconnected part and 

 disappearing. But as he grew older his conception 

 of the story itself grew clearer, and his arrange- 

 ment more artistic. It is however in description 

 that Dickens proved himself so great a master. 

 He laid his hand by instinct upon the salient and 

 characteristic features, and he never failed in find- 

 ing the right the only- words fit for their illus- 

 tration. In description he is never conventional, 

 always real, and yet he allows himself, here as in 

 his scenes of character and dialogue, a certain 



